XFX R7750 Black Edition DD Review - PAGE 2

Most of the graphics cards under the XFX brand tend to ship in a particular of style packaging, so it's no surprise the XFX R7750 BE comes in a box that that is similar to what we have seen from other Black Edition graphics cards. The Double Dissipation logo adorns the front of this model's package instead of the Black Edition logo. The front of the box also includes all the key features such as the thermal solution being used, the GPU clock speed, amount of memory and the PCIe connection type.

Much like the packaging of their high-end graphics cards, XFX has managed to utilize nearly all the available surface area on the panels to highlight the product information. Looking around the box, we can see there is a panel dedicated to the key features which are presented in the form of a list, while another panel includes images and descriptions of the included features such as multi-monitor support, GPU edging, and XFX's 5-star support. The back panel lists some of the same features, but is dedicated to the "X" factor technologies including XPertise, XFormance, XFactor and XPerience.

Bundled accessories include a VGA adapter along with the drivers disc, installation guides and a "Do Not Disturb" sign. Overall there is nothing overly impressive about the bundle, but this is standard for a mainstream graphics card.

The appearance of the XFX R7750 is the same as all the cards in the Black Edition family, but at just 8.2" it is dramatically smaller than the high-end models. In addition, the card features a sleek brushed aluminum outer cover with a black stripe running down the middle, along with dual 80mm fans.

Since this model is built on the Cape Verde Pro graphics processor the core packs in 1.5 billion transistors and is built on a 28nm node with a die size of just 123mm². Internally the core has 8 compute units giving it a total of 512 streaming processors, 16 ROPS and 32 texture units. All of these specifications are the same as any HD 7750, but where the XFX model differs is in the clock speeds. A reference HD 7750 has a GPU clock speed of 800MHz, while this model is clocked at 900MHz. The memory however didn't get the same treatment, as it has the standard 1GB GDDR5 frame buffer clocked at 1125MHz (4.5Gbps QDR), giving it a bandwidth rating of 72Gb/s.

As we mentioned before, this model is the only HD 7750 to enter our labs with an additional power connector. This gives the board a total of 150 watts of available power, well over the 55W power rating. Of course this model will use slightly more power since it is clocked 100MHz higher than the reference models, but that still leaves nearly 100W of additional power.

The video output options on the R7750 BE include dual DL-DVI connectors along with full-sized DisplayPort and HMI connections. In addition, the rear bracket is also part of the XFactor design. Just beside the lower DVI port is a large XFX logo. This logo opens up the bracket and improves the overall ventilation. According to XFX, this simple alteration for the rear bracket can reduce the temperatures by up to 20% by increasing the rate at which the airflow can be exhausted.

Breaking down the video options, the DisplayPort uses the 1.2 specification to enable support for up to three monitors per port (via MST Hub) as well as AMD HD3D technology. The HDMI 1.4a connector on the other hand supports 3GHz speeds with frame packing. Essentially this allows the connection to run the frames faster, thus creating a smoother gaming experience. The HDMI and DP ports can also be teamed together to support HD3D Surround, which is a feature new to Eyefinity 2.0.